The 'Homo deus' is dead

The philosopher Ana Carrasco Conde says that a. C. and d. C. will have a new meaning after this pandemic. Before or after Coronavirus. A change of era in which a god has also died: the Homo deus of Yuval Noah Harari and his dataists.

They said that technology would allow us to dominate nature, eliminate diseases, be immortal. Lacovid-19 has shown that they were lying. Where are the transhumanists and their eternal life now, those who promised that artificial intelligence would anticipate the future?

Zigmunt Bauman said that on November 9, 1989, while Günter Schabowski dictated the opening of borders between the two Germanies, a great congress of sovietologists was held. None of them had seen the fall of the wall coming. Nor did any of the powerful algorithms that surround us know how to detect the plague that today devastates the Earth.

And the problem is not not being able to see: it is looking the other way. The algorithms know which movie you are going to buy, but have been unable to anticipate the greatest global crisis of the last century. It is not a technology problem, the problem is at the service of what has been put.

Digital innovation has focused on making the few richer instead of improving the lives of the many. A mercantilist vision that reduced investment in science, fascinated by technological siren songs.

Scientific research turns money into knowledge; technology, that knowledge in money. Digital capitalism took precedence over the latter and neglected the former. If technology is the return trip, science is the outward journey. Both are essential, but their focus should not be the eternity of the mighty Homo deus but the dignity of the fragile mortal man.